Brunello run

Brunello is a highly regarded wine from the region around Montalcino, a small town in southern Tuscany, about 100 Km from us.  We decided to go there for an outing yesterday, with a thought to bring back a few bottles of wine.  

Our drive first took us to the towns of Montepulciano, also well-known for its wineries, and Pienza.  All of these are medieval towns, on a hill with a substantial wall around them.  Here are a few scenes--Montepulciano as you approach it, the Duomo in Montalpulciano, and a newer apartment in Pienza with the ubiquitous flower boxes on the balcony. 

After a light lunch in Pienza, it was off to Montalcino.  Here, as everywhere we have seen, the wineries are small family estates.  We made an arbitrary decision to go into one, Solaria.  In our tasting, we learned that Brunello takes its time developing its flavor, at least seven years.  We decided to by a very nice 2006 and were escorted down into the wine cellar for the purchase.

And then on to the town itself.

Walking from the car park to the centro, we passed this classic example of what Italians do with a fifteenth-century residence:

The town has a huge fortezza at the highest point, clearly the castle keep back in the day.  Now there is a wine bar inside.  

Running down from the fortezza is the narrow medieval street that is now the home of trattorias and enotecas.  When you drive through the countryside, you always see vinyards and olive groves in symbiotic relationship.  Virtually all of the wineries also make their own olive oil, so it is natural that the enotecas sell olive oil as well as wine.

biker chick

And of course, no matter how many wines you have sampled, no day trip in Italy is complete without an afternoon gelato!